Comminution machines are used to reduce the particle size of hard material in industrial processes. Comminution machines that are granulators are equipped with a rotor fitted with blades. The blades can be chipper knives, with several chipper knives typically being arranged lying one behind the other in the rotational direction of the rotor. The arrangement of blades of the rotor essentially extends across its entire longitudinal extension.
The rotor blades work together with the blades of a stator body during maceration operations. The stator is kept fixed in place in relation to the rotational movements of the rotor. The stator body bears one or more blades arranged in a row parallel to the shell of the rotor. The blades of the stator are typically designed as cutter bars. The edge of the blade pointing against the rotational direction of the rotor functions as cutting edge and acts with the rotor blades to macerate the feed material.
During operation of such a comminution machine, the blades and particularly the stator blade or blades, become worn, resulting in an increases of the cutting gap between the rotor blades and the stator blade. The stator blade(s) are worn faster because several rotor blades are generally arranged one behind the other in the rotational direction of the rotor, so a single stator blade represents the stator blade for several rotor blades. Therefore, comminution machines have been developed that have a stator body whose blades can be moved in the direction towards the rotor using an adjustment mechanism to compensate for the enlargement of the cutting gap occurring during operation.
In previously known stator bodies with adjustable blades the adjustment mechanism acts directly on the blades. The blade or blades can be moved towards the rotor using adjustment device, for example an adjustment spindle, to compensate for the increasing cutting gap caused by wear. These blade readjustments are typically done manually. During the readjustment of the stator blade(s), care must be taken to ensure that the stator blade(s) are not moved too far towards the rotor to prevent blocking the rotation of the rotor. If a blade has been moved too far towards the shell of the rotor, a user has to open the entire blade mounting and move the adjusting mechanism back before a new blade adjustment can be done. This is time-consuming.
In DE 20 2005 013 719 1, a stator adjustment mechanism for a comminution machine is described with an adjustable stator blade that can be moved either towards the rotor or away from it. The stator adjustment mechanism has a push-pull screw, a lever and an adjustment screw. The push-pull screw is attached to a connecting element which in turn provides the form-fitting connection with the stator blade. The adjustment screw acts on the push-pull screw via a lever integrated into a housing. This allows adjustment of the stator blade without releasing the pre-stress on the blade. This prior art comminution machine has a stator adjustment mechanism which moves the stator blade towards and away from the rotor with relative ease. However, the exchange of a worn-out blade in the prior art machine is laborious and time-consuming. In addition, the blades need to be equipped with long mounting holes for the mounting screws to engage.
The foregoing example of the related art and limitations related therewith are intended to be illustrative and not exclusive. Other limitations of the related art will become apparent to those of skill in the art upon a reading of the specification and a study of the drawings.